Monthly Archives: February 2015

I grew up on Star Trek and Mr. Spock who was one of the coolest characters ever. I even tried the Vulcan mind probe out on my boyhood pal Andy, but it didn’t work much to my annoyance. In short, I was sad to hear of the death of Leonard Nimoy at the age of 83 today. He was a fine actor and an even better human being. I’ll leave the live long and prosper comments to others, and won’t go in search of anything in Mr. Nimoy’s honor either. The best tribute I saw all day was this cartoon by Andy Marlette of the Pensacola News-Journal:

One of the highlights of the 1992 election cycle was when Paul Tsongas called Bill Clinton a Pander Bear for obvious reasons. Bill not only felt people’s pain, he borrowed their ideas, policies, you name if, he’d use it. He was to politicians what Milton Berle was to comedians.

The 2016 election cycle seems to be featuring a new variation on this theme: Chris Christie as the Angry Pander Bear. I originally thought Christie might use his Ralph Kramden/Governor Asshole persona to run against the nutty GOP base but those days are long gone. He’s gone from CPAC pariah to favorite:

…Christie pitched himself repeatedly as a man of the people, someone who was willing to stand up for regular folks and fight for them. He turned a question on immigration into an opportunity to praise “hardworking people” struggling in America. In response to a question about Bush’s immigration remarks in which he had praised immigrants for their entrepreneurial character, Christie accused politicians of caring too much about what “they say on the editorial page of the New York Times and Washington Post.”

Free of the burden of being the establishment’s darling, Christie also sought to exorcise his White House ties. Asked about the time he told a constituent to “sit down and shut up,” Christie didn’t shy away, saying some people needed to hear just that advice. When the audience reacted positively, he said the Obama White House needed to hear that order. The audience reacted favorably.

I keep waiting for a Republican to stand up to wingnuts whose idea of principled politics is to hold their breath until they get their way. The Tea Party is a misnomer. The should be called the Toddler Tantrum party: holding our breath til we turn blue since 2009.

The reason for Gov. Kramden’s switch is that Poppy’s boy, Jeb the acronym, is the favored candidate of white shoe, country club establishment Republicans. Jeb is pretending to take on the extremists in his party but it won’t last. He’s a Bush and they’re experts at pandering: Poppy Bush’s entire career was an exercise in pandering, which was why it was so ironic that he lost to the original Pander Bear. History is unlikely to repeat itself: the Angry Pander Bear is unlikely to beat out Jeb the acronym for the nomination. Me, I still think they’re going to go full tilt bat shit crazy and nominate someone who will lose every state outside the hardcore hookworm/wingnut belt.

Finally, I’m trying out a nickname for John Ellis Bush. Whaddya think of Jeb the acronym or Acronym Jeb? Not as funny as Willard Mittbot Romney, but no candidate will ever be as funny as Willard. The nation’s gain was satire’s loss.

I met Boris on Mardi Gras day and the first thing I learned is that Boris is a she. Boris also came with the house that my friends Holly and Paul bought across the street from Dollar Bill Jefferson. Boris is a remarkably patient and friendly cat: I picked her up on our first meeting and she purred for me. She is also tolerant of humans messing with her as you tell from the King Cake baby on her head in the first picture.

Here she is with an Elizabethan collar ruff thing, looking very much like Bette Davis when she played Queen Elizabeth. I suspect she’d rather live with a male cat named Natasha than Errol Flynn but we didn’t go there.

Some malakatude is venal and some is rooted in cluelessness, stupidity, and ignorance. This week’s honoree seems to fit snugly into the stupid category. That is why Kristi Capel is malaka of the week.

Local teevee anchors aren’t always known for their intelligence, especially morning show people. Kristi Capel of WJW-TV in Cleveland looks good on camera, has a twinkly smile, and a limited vocabulary. You’ve probably heard about her dumbass, racially clueless comments about Lady Gaga on the morning after the Oscars:

The look on co-anchor Wayne Dawson’s face says it all. His raised eyebrow and nervous smile sum up the situation quite nicely. Btw, is it just me or does anyone else think he resembles Duke Ellington? I suspect that Ms. Capel has never taken the A train to Harlem and probably has no idea who Duke Ellington is. Ignorance can kill ya.

“I just want to take a moment to address a comment that I made yesterday that got a lot of attention,” Capel said at 6:45 a.m. Tuesday. “It’s important for me to let you know that I deeply regret my insensitive comment. And I truly did not know the meaning of the word and would never intentionally use such hurtful language.”

<snip>

“I sincerely apologize for using that language and promise to learn from this, and I hope you will give me that chance,” Capel said Tuesday morning.

Her co-anchor showed the class of Duke Ellington and confirmed that her use of an esoteric and venerable racial slur was based on dumbassery instead of willful malakatude. She’s been suspended for 3 days for being as stupid as this:

I realize comparing anyone to Porsha Williams is unkind but that’s what this feature is all about. Besides, I’m going easy on Kristi Capel, I haven’t even called her Crapel until now.

Here’s the real lesson of this sorry episode to people who do live television: NEVER USE A WORD IF YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT IT MEANS. Ms. Capel failed to check the Urban Dictionary and that is why she’s malaka of the week.

So the annual spittle-flecked rave (rage?) for the aggressively ignorant begins today…not exactly Three Days of Peace and Music…more like Three Days of Red Meat, Bloody Shirt Waving, and Howling about Victimization…while wingnut welfare expense accounts pick up the tab. Funny how that works.

Anyway, I’m expecting that even Ghouliani’s desperate-cry-for-attention/performance will be outdone before it’s all over, because, like junkies, the rage addicts need ever stronger doses. But…might as well get a laugh watching it all. For victims, they sure do seem…awfully comfortable.

A friend of mine is taking the train from New Orleans to Newark this week. I suggested that he take all of his warmest winter clothes including mukluks if he had any. That, in turn, made me think of this cover, which features one of the silliest words ever:

What is most disturbing is the image…the image of three Republican state legislators being escorted by security past protestors at the State Capitol Tuesday evening. And once again the nation watches news from Wisconsin and wonders what is going on in that state? It’s hard to imagine this is the impression Republicans are hoping will convince people to invest in Wisconsin.

But by once again ram-rodding divisive policy through the legislature and short-circuiting the public-hearing process, lawmakers have created an atmosphere of frustration and anger. Frankly the suggestion that the protests were a public safety risk is offensive. The largest risk is the risk to democracy by limiting the rights of citizens to be heard on laws that affect their lives. But embarrassing images and bad-faith governing are not things that concern this legislature any more.

But they used the words “credible threat!” Just like on CSI or something! It was all terrorist-speak-y!

Honestly, why should they care what they look like? There aren’t any electoral consequences for them. Mr. My New Boyfriend up there aside, most journalists have been treating the debate over the Right to Work (For Less) bill in Wisconsin as OH THIS IS ALL SO BORING DO WE HAVE TO WRITE ABOUT PROTESTS AGAIN?

Witness this, which Jude sends me because he worries my life is too calm and my blood pressure may be too low:

HARDY HAR HAR NOTHING MATTERS REALLY. Both sides are noisy but it’s all so lamesauce.

The national press is too busy jerking off about Walker 2016 to pay attention to the actual business of governing. So the Wisconsin GOP looks like a bunch of goddamn clowns. Who’s going to impose any kind of consequences for that?

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid may be bruised and battered but he knows how to throw shade while wearing shades. It’s what our current Congressional politics have boiled down to since the Republicans took control of both houses. Remember all the naifs who proclaimed that the GOPers would have to compromise and get shit done once they were in the majority? I guess none of them have been paying attention since 2009; either that or their crystal balls are cloudier than the sky in New Orleans today.

The latest wingnut shade is being thrown on two fronts; both of which illustrate the extent to which the Republican party has gone batshit crazy and both kinda sorta involve immigration and the administration’s “lawlessness.”

First, the GOPers are threatening to defund the Homeland Security Department if the President doesn’t make nice with them and cave on his executive orders on immigration. This is beyond bonkers: Dubya and chickenhawks in both parties pushed for this department after the event Rudy cannot stop talking about. It was a CYA move for the Bushies after they ignored warnings that a big attack was coming. For Congressional neo-cons such as Holy Joe Lieberman and Senator Walnuts, it was an exercise in dick waving and measuring. It’s a pity that Don Lemon wasn’t around to cover that, he knows from dickishness.

Where was I? Oh yeah, the war loving, border fence worshiping party wants to shut down Homeland Security when there are semi-plausible terrorist threats against shopping malls and other assorted targets that may or may not have Targets. Of course, if ISIL knew anything about Merica, they’d have made the threat during the holiday season and given Bill-O confirmation of the so-called war on Christmas. So much for protecting the “homeland.” (A phrase that’s too Teutonic for my taste but that debate’s long over. ) Way to go, Congressional wingnuts, you’re contradicting yourselves again.

Speaking of nutty contradictions, Republicans are trying to shut down the confirmation of Loretta Lynch as the next Attorney General. This one is even funnier than the DHS shutdown threat because right wing bete noir, Eric Holder has averred that he’s staying in office until his replacement is confirmed. They cannot even put their hatred of President Obama’s “lawlessness” on Holder long enough to get rid of the *other* black man they love to hate. It’s an excellent example of ideological purity run amuck. It reminds me of the Daffy Duck toon Duck Amuck with Tailgunner Ted as Daffy.

Let’s move from Congressional shade throwing to some sensational shade thrown by former CBS newsman Eric Enberg at the gas-filled windbag who lies on a nightly basis on Fox News. You know who, the man we call Bill-O, the human hot air balloon:

Eric Engberg, a CBS correspondent who was also in Buenos Aires at the time, defended Corn in a Facebook post on Friday and said, “It was not a war zone or even close. It was an ‘expense account zone.'”

Ouch. It’s a pity that Bill-O’s blues won’t lead to his ouster or even suspension but it’s been great hearing some teevee news vets calling him out for what he is: a lying sack of shit. Make that chicken shit. Of course, Fox News is the world’s largest sack of shit so that reporter threatening, loofa wielding malaka Bill-O will stay on the air. I guess one could say that he’s been David Cornholed…

Back to Harry Reid, I like the new look. It makes him the Jack Nicholson of the Senate. Jack, of course, wears shades indoors for different reasons than Leader Reid. But I’ve never compared Harry to Jack before so he’s almost as cool as the coolest septuagenarian in the country. Eat your heart out, Joe Biden.

The Daddy-O in question was producer Holmes Daddy-O Daylie who was a pioneering African-American Jazz DJ. I’d never heard of him before and enjoyed learning about him in a 2003 obituary in the Chicago Tribune.

The album probably should be called Inside A Limb, but it’s actually quite good. Here it is on the YouTube:

MADISON, Wis. (AP) – Republicans on the state Senate’s labor committee ended a public hearing on contentious right-to-work legislation early and sent it on to the full Senate Tuesday, enraging dozens of people who had been waiting all day to speak and sparking a demonstration in front of the Senate chamber.

The daylong hearing began at 10 a.m. Sen. Stephen Nass, a Whitewater Republican and the committee’s chairman, had planned for it to last until 7 p.m. But around 6:20 p.m. he announced he was ending the hearing due to what he called a “credible threat” that union members planned to disrupt the proceeding.

“We’re not going to take a chance,” Nass told the crowd.

We’re not going to take a chance that disruption may occur. Your right to comment on matters of concern to you can be erased by the words “credible threat” because union thugs, and protesters, and possibly hippies, are coming to say mean things to you, loudly.

This is the party that is going to put the state of Wisconsin back to work? Really? These fraidy cats?

Police escorted the three Republicans on the committee out of the room after the vote.

Arquette tried to use her win for Best Supporting Actress as an opportunity to speak out for wage equality, and, to be fair, her actual speech on the podiumwasn’t the worst thing ever. “To every woman who gave birth, to every taxpayer and citizen of this nation, we have fought for everybody else’s equal rights,” she said. “It’s our time to have wage equality once and for all and equal rights for women in the United States of America.” A bit jumbled and shallow—ninth-grade debate club debut-ish—but her heart seemed to be in the right place. At least, Meryl Streep and J-Lo thought so.

But when Arquette was asked to elaborate backstage, she gave a lengthy answer that included this statement: “And it’s time for all the women in America and all the men that love women, and all the gay people, and all the people of color that we’ve all fought for to fight for us now.”

[snip]

I’m generally a big fan of celebrities using their platforms to get out the message about feminism, even though they often do so by offering a defanged version sculpted to minimize backlash. But Arquette’s political grandstanding played into every ugly stereotype about “feminism” being about little more than some privileged white women trying to become more privileged.

Yeah. I’m not wild about the dogpiling onto Arquette from the left, like let’s not expect perfection in every feminist sentiment or we’ll never hear anybody speaking up at all, but that was the point at which I said oh honey, no.

You don’t get to tell all the men that love women, and all the gay people, and all the people of color, what they owe you.

You don’t get to act like somebody else should just fall in line now, because it’s your turn.

You don’t decide when anybody else’s turn is.

I wish you did, sometimes. I would like to tell all of you what is important to you. I would like to make you all feel righteously guilty for not caring about the same things I do, in the same proportions, at the same times. I would like to MAKE you all get on board with my every motivation. I can’t do that. The only thing I can do, the only thing anybody has the right to do, is tell you what’s important to me. I can hope you come to care about it but I can’t knit it into your blood and bones. I can’t stand up for it for you.

Words are not imperatives, and we only all speak for ourselves.

I have zero problem with Arquette speaking for herself. It’s a valid statement and was one of a very few to address the world as it is even from inside her very wealthy, successful bubble. I appreciated it, as a fellow white chick who likes getting paid like a white dude would get paid.

I have a HUGE problem with her treating solidarity like it’s some kind of vending machine. “I put a dollar in for your cause, so I should get a candy bar for mine.” Like decency is a loan that needs paying back with interest. Like you do what you do in order to get something for it, and not for the sake of your immortal soul. It is not TIME for anyone to do anything for you that you’ve done for them. It’s just time for you to do what you need to do, which is all the time anyway.

National Republicans are pulling the plug on Mark Sanford’s suddenly
besieged congressional campaign, POLITICO has learned — a potentially
fatal blow to the former South Carolina governor’s dramatic comeback
bid.

Blindsided by news that Sanford’s ex-wife has accused him of
trespassing and concluding he has no plausible path to victory, the
National Republican Congressional Committee has decided not to spend
more money on Sanford’s behalf ahead of the May 7 special election.

*************************

Blindsided? Knowing that scumbag’s history and they’re acting surprised? Too late to save the House seat. Epic fail.

I smell a cooked up HIT PIECE with a nice misquote of his wife to add a special flavor.
The Columbia rag is a dedicated left wing Dem propaganda sheet stocked
full of recent lobotomized journalism student leftists from USC
Columbia.

Don’t fall for that. Republicans nominated him fair and square. I
know many folks who are strong bible-believers, greatest generation
folks, pro-military, pro-life and rinos who willing voted for him twice
during the primaries. We’re getting exactly what we deserved.

The Doves Type was commissioned by Thomas Cobden-Sanderson as a bespoke typeface for the Doves Press, the London printing company he co-founded with Emery Walker in 1900. A modern take on a Venetian serif, it took two years to create and was used in all of the Press’s publications, including books of verse by Shakespeare and Milton and the Doves Bible, which featured drop caps by Edward Johnston.

After falling out with Walker, however – their partnership was legally dissolved in 1909, after the business encountered financial troubles – Cobden-Sanderson spent nine months tipping 2,600lb of it into the Thames in secret, ensuring that if he couldn’t use it, nor could anyone else. Disguised by darkness, he made around 170 trips to the Hammersmith Bridge to tip small parcels into the water at night, the splashes concealed by passing traffic, before announcing that it had been “bequeathed’ to the Thames.

And you thought your office had drama.

I love lead type. I have a bunch of old letters and one half of an old lead plate for a newspaper; the thing could crush walnuts and it’s the coolest thing I own. We once loved words so much, and believed they had such power, that even though we had to cast them in hot metal to use them, we did it because the alternative — silence — was that unbearable.

The river is giving the letters back now:

Surprised as he was to find the type so easily, Green says he was probably the first person to really look for it. “I had always read that it had never been found, so assumed loads of people had gone to look for it but actually, I don’t think anyone had ever bothered,” he adds. Upon his discovery, he called the Port Authority again, which carried out a two-day dive and eventually recovered 150 pieces.

All awards shows are terrible so I only watch one, the granny of them all, the Laughing Academy Awards aka Oscars. Twitter is pretty darn entertaining during awards shows as it gives you an excuse to ignore the *really* bad or annoying bits. And there are always oodles of those. Here in no particular order are some random and scattered observations about the Oscars:

Famous People Have Just As Much Difficulty Separating Public and Private Spheres As Us Mere Mortals: Jeez, that was a long ass title. The prime examples are John Travolta with his face squeezing and general creepiness, and Sean Penn busting the chops of his old friend Alejandro Innaritu with the unfunny green card joke. It wouldn’t be funny in a bar or at a party but it set the tweeter tube ablaze because you’re in public, Sean, and Twitter is an ignorant context free motherfucker. Btw, Travolta won the award for the worst wig I have ever seen. Yikes.

The Actor/Actress Who Plays A Character With A Disease Or Disability Always Wins: It happened again this year with, Eddie Redmayne, the dude who played Stephen Hawking. I thought the popularity of Birdman meant that Michael Keaton would win since he was the best thing about that movie, but he was merely a depressed asshole as opposed to sick or disabled. Anyone remember either Cliff Robertson or the movie Charly? I thought not.

As to Julianne Moore, she had 2 rules of the Laughing Academy in her favor: disease and the “much nominated, we love her, so it’s her turn” rule.

I’ll continue doing the nattering nabob of negativism thing after the break.

What a shocker! Everybody on the Professional Left has been sniggering for years about the ignorant Republican poors scraping up what utility money they haven’t already given to Pat Robertson, and pissing it down a PAC sinkhole, but suddenly, the rubes have awakened!

To: All; Jim Robinson; onyx

This is a truly sad report. Rove wastes money and others manipulate us just to enrich themselves.

2 posted on ‎2‎/‎17‎/‎2015‎ ‎9‎:‎54‎:‎53‎ ‎AM by xzins ( Retired Army Chaplain and Proud of It! Those who truly support our troops pray for victory!)

.

(by the way, Free Republic is having even more trouble than usual with their never-ending Freepathon, but we’ll get to that in the next thread)

So, Freepers – what’s your reaction to the fact that you’ve been played like a cheap guitar?

To: xzins

All I know is that the Liberals spent a LOT of money in 2014 and got their butts kicked on election day.

4 posted on ‎2‎/‎17‎/‎2015‎ ‎9‎:‎56‎:‎32‎ ‎AM by Cowboy Bob (Isn’t it funny that Socialists never want to share their own money?)

So your defense is that somebody else spent money? Money that actually went to their candidates? That’s it?

To: xzins

To my mind, most of these records if true are completely reprehensible, bordering on near fraud, actually. With the exception of CFG who I think is legitimately conservative and not GOPe related, they are pitiful records.

I had suspicions about Jenny Beth Martin and the TPP here in Georgia and was rightly so.

There was a thread yesterday from someone asking what to do about donations to ‘tea party whatevers’. My advice was to put the money into individual campaigns and bypass them altogether.

That’s the way I read it. If you further read the entire accompanying narrative with the article at the leak, you will see that a common trick by some of them is to expense-out money to vendors for all sorts of things. It also says there are MANY of these PACs whose ‘vendors’ are employees, workers, relatives or other persons not wholly identified. What’s worse FEC regs don’t require them to go beyond the first vendor expenditure. Thus, that expenditure gets credited as an expense. This study sought to find out the truth – and the truth is very ugly my FRiend.

I’ve suspected this all along. When I saw Jenny Beth Martin of the Tea Party Patriots being interviewed on TV about what she and her group directly did to help that professor oust Eric Cantor in Virginia and exactly what her group was doing in the way of funding the Senatorial Primary in Louisiana, I got my answer – essentially not a damn thing.

They call me almost every day. I refuse their calls. Next time they call I will answer and let them know why they will never see another dime from me.

27 posted on ‎2‎/‎17‎/‎2015‎ ‎1‎:‎00‎:‎07‎ ‎PM by thefactor (yes, as a matter of fact, i DID only read the excerpt)

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To: Gaffer

“To my mind, most of these records if true are completely reprehensible, bordering on near fraud, actually.”

I am forced to agree.

We’ve long known that we have more than our share of con artists on our side of the aisle, people like Karl Rove who’ll say anything at any given minute if they think it’ll bring in a couple more donations. But some of the names on this list are deeply troubling.

I used to think better of Sarah Palin, but this is indefensible. I can only hope that she’ll refute this report with hard facts if it’s false. Because if these numbers are true, she’s just another scam artist raising a fortune from conservatives who really thought their money could make a difference to more than a grifter’s bank account.

40 posted on ‎2‎/‎17‎/‎2015‎ ‎6‎:‎36‎:‎53‎ ‎PM by highball (“I never should have switched from scotch to martinis.” — the last words of Humphrey Bogart)

Oh dear.

One Freeper’s not convinced:

To: xzins

I wonder if money is being stockpiled for 2016?

Stockpiled, yes. For candidates? Not so much.

I’d need to have more info before I can determine if the Tea Party PAC’s are really a ripoff.

34 posted on ‎2‎/‎17‎/‎2015‎ ‎3‎:‎24‎:‎12‎ ‎PM by liberalh8ter (The only difference between flash mob ‘urban yutes’ and U.S. politicians is the hoodies.)

Almost the post of the thread:

To: Gaffer; All

It has always puzzled me how the super rich like the Koch Brothers have been able to persuade so many modest income people to vote against some of their own interests.

Does Barack Obama like America? The people around him certainly seem to have their reservations. Michelle Obama said — twice, at separate campaign events — that her husband’s ascending to the presidency meant that “for the first time in my adult lifetime, I’m really proud of my country.” She was in her mid 40s at the time, her “adult lifetime” having spanned decades during which she could not be “really proud” of her country. Barack Obama spent years in the Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s church as the churchman fulminated: “God Damn America!” The Reverend Wright’s infamous “God Damn America!” sermon charges the country with a litany of abuses: slavery, mistreatment of the Indians, “treating citizens as less than human,” etc. A less raving version of the same indictment can be found in the president’s own speeches and books. His social circle includes such figures as Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, who expressed their love of country by participating in a murderous terrorist campaign against it.

Let’s be blunt, regarding the Weather Underground: They killed exactly 58,203 fewer people than did the Vietnam War, but we keep having Henry Kissinger on TV talking about shit, so until that miserable decrepit meatsock is frogmarched into the Hague you will pardon me if I yawn whenever anybody brings up Bill Fucking Ayers again.

Also hey, hey, LBJ.

If we must re-fight the Vietnam War every goddamn election, let’s at least have the fight over Richard Nixon and whether we should dig up his moldering corpse just to set it on fire.

This week, the right-to-work debate moves front and center in Wisconsin.

With Republicans in the Legislature aiming to fast-track a bill to Gov. Scott Walker’s desk, they’re following a playbook that has been executed in other GOP-led states in the upper Midwest.

In early 2012, just before the Super Bowl came to Indianapolis, then-Gov. Mitch Daniels signed a right-to-work law in Indiana.

Later that year, it was Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder’s turn to hand a stinging defeat to organized labor.

And now, it’s on to Wisconsin, where the labor battle has come full circle.

Walker, a possible 2016 presidential candidate, has said he’ll sign a right-to-work bill once it is pushed through Legislature. Compared with the struggle over Act 10, when Walker was front-and-center in taking on public-sector unions, the governor is now in the background responding to lawmakers.

But Walker’s peekaboo style on right-to-work would have the same effect: unleashing a big blow to big labor.

He’s got to dig deep and show the people who pay his presidential campaign’s bills that he can be just as big an asshole as everybody thinks he is.

What struck me in the story linked above, however, was that as usual things are just happening.

Unions are losing power.

Labor is declining.

All by itself:

“In some ways it’s the end of a very long decline of the strength of unions and a weakening of protections both at the federal and state level for unions,” said William P. Jones, a University of Wisconsin-Madison history professor.

[snip]

Jones said unions have been losing power since the late 1970s, with a renewed push against organized labor in the wake of the 2007-’09 Great Recession.

Even with right-to-work laws implemented in Michigan and Indiana, and also surviving court challenges, unions haven’t gone away. But they have been hard pressed.

Who has pressed them?

Do you see what I’m getting at here? We talk about outsourcing and the decline of the middle class and the decimation of American manufacturing and the push against unions without ever using a subject in our sentences.

That way we can make it seem like nobody’s to blame. That way we can avoid “controversial” and/or opinionated or non-objective views of reality like:

Republicans, backed by wealthy business owners, attacked unions because those unions threatened their interests which are, in order: Making enough money to roll around in like Scrooge McDuck, making enough money to afford to buy Barbados, and making enough money to stack up all that money higher than Everest.

Those unions served as vehicles for political opposition to those interests, and so those unions had to go.

Why can’t we just say that? Because it makes Republicans like Scott Walker look like mean bullies who want to step on the American worker?

Better to just act like this all appeared out of thin air, conjured by the passage of time.